Tony grunted and tried to quickly shake the sleep from his brain. He looked around and realized that he had fallen asleep on his couch during his self-sponsored Godfather marathon. It was four o'clock in the morning. His cell phone rang again and he realized it was what had woken him up.

He didn't recognize the number and answered stolidly, "DiNozzo."

The woman on the other end had only gotten out two sentences before Tony was cramming his feet in his shoes and slipping his gun onto his belt. Grabbing his keys, he was out the door and in the car before the woman had finished telling him all she needed to.

All he had needed to hear was "emergency room" and "Abigail Sciuto" to set his body in motion. Everything else was moot. His driving to get there rivaled Gibbs' and he arrived at the hospital in short order. He flashed his identification and the nurse escorted him back to where Abby was immediately.

He saw two local uniformed police officers loitering around a private exam room and he got a sick feeling. He knew from his experience on the force why a woman would be in a private exam room with police lingering. He identified himself to the officers who told him that the detectives were in with Abby taking a statement and would be out in a minute. Tony managed to locate Abby's doctor who wouldn't tell him much other than she was okay and not seriously injured. The emergency room was very busy and the doctor really didn't have time to talk.

Tony, being Tony and having no patience, knocked softly on the exam room door and opened it to stick his head in, and what he saw made his hands clench into fists instantly. Abby was sitting up in the bed under a couple of blankets. She was sporting a bright red handprint across her cheek and her throat had finger marks turning colors. Her left arm was splinted and in a sling across her chest. Her hair was in total disarray and her makeup was streaked and he could see mascara tear tracks dried on her cheeks. She looked small and broken.

The second she saw Tony her whole demeanor changed, and with typical Abby enthusiasm shouted, "TONY! Thank god you came. Will you please get me out of here?"

He looked to the detectives, "Can you please give us a minute?" They nodded and left the room.

He went to her side and said quietly, "Abs, you okay? What happened?"

She sounded disgusted with herself as she said, "I'm fine. Just embarrassed. Its all my fault, I should have known better. He was just a jerk."

"Abby, if someone forced you, it's not your fault." She wasn't acting like a typical rape victim and Tony was lost.

Her head snapped up, "Oh god Tony, I wasn't. I mean, he didn't. They just put me in here because they had no more beds out there and the detectives wanted to talk to me."

Tony felt his knees getting weak, and sent a silent prayer of thanks to whichever angel was watching over Abby. "So what happened?"

"One of my friends is the deejay at this club and I stayed till closing with him, he asked one of the bouncers to walk me to my car. Said bouncer was a creep and tried to get too friendly. I tried to get away and it got ugly. He slapped me and I clubbed him one and fractured my wrist. But other than that I'm okay. I screamed my head off and my deejay friend and a couple other guys came running. I just really want to go home Tony."

"Geez Abs. All right, let's get you home. I'll check with the detectives and see if they need anything else."

The detectives exchanged business cards with Tony and told him they would call if they needed anything. Tony went back in to sit with Abby to wait for the doctor.

----------

Finally released into his care, Abby was safely buckled in to the passenger seat of Tony's car and he headed for her apartment.

Something was bugging Tony. Abby was like a sister to him and he loved her dearly, but he generally wasn't her first choice to play knight in shining armor. That honor belonged to Gibbs. So why didn't she call him?

"Abs, why didn't you call Gibbs?"

"Are you kidding me? He's Gibbs."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He would have gone berserk. He would have threatened the detectives, who were really nice by the way. He would have threatened the doctors and nurses, who took really good care of me. He would have threatened my deejay friend for not walking me out himself. And he'll just KILL the creepy bouncer."

"You're going to have to tell him sometime, Abs."

She slunk down into the seat a little further, "I know, maybe next year though."

----------

Tony got Abby home and with the aid of a scarf tied around his eyes so he couldn't see, helped her into her pajamas so she could go to bed. Once she was decent and he could remove the blindfold he actually pulled the covers up and tucked her in. He turned to go and she asked in a quiet voice, "Will you stay ‘til I go to sleep?"

He turned around and gave her a peck on the check, "I'll crash on your couch Abs. If you need anything just shout."

"Thanks Tony. For everything."

A few hours later, Abby stumbled out of her room in search of some ibuprofen to ease the throbbing in her wrist and had to stifle a giggle at the site of Tony sprawled on her couch. She put coffee on knowing that would drag him out of his sleepy stupor. And sure enough, as the last bit gurgled into the pot he made his way into the kitchen with one eye open.

"Hey. How you feeling?"

"Embarrassed, sore, tired. You?"

"Sore, my six foot plus body isn't made for a five foot couch. Tired, didn't get a whole lot of sleep. And worried about what Gibbs is gonna do with my body when he finds out I didn't call him last night."

"Yeah. I guess I should call him."

Tony looked at her over his coffee mug, "Wise girl."

She picked up the phone and dialed, "Hi. Um. I didn't wake, you did I?

Tony listened to the one sided conversation with dread, knowing Gibbs was going to give him hell.

"Well listen, there was this thing that happened last night."

"Yeah, a thing. At a club. I sorta ran into a little trouble. Well okay, a big trouble. Big bald trouble actually."

"Yeah, he has a name, but that's not the point. The point is I'm really okay and I don't want you to freak out."

"Well I can think of a few reasons you might freak out Gibbs. But I'm okay. I said that right?"

"No don't come over. I'm fine."

"The doctor at the emergency room said I was fine Gibbs. Really. You don't have to come…" she dropped the phone away from her ear staring at it. "He hung up Tony. That gives us about fifteen minutes tops before he gets here."

Tony had a pained expression on his face, "I think my will is up to date."